Australia’s east coast is bracing for chilly nights through to the weekend as a cold front moves through parts ofNew South Walesand Victoria.
NSW and the ACT were expecting snowfall on the southern ranges to areas above 1,100 metres on Tuesday evening, with blizzard conditions forecast to develop across alpine areas inVictoriaovernight. The Bureau of Meteorology forecast areas of frost through the high country in Victoria and NSW and other parts of both states by Wednesday.
“It’ll get a good 2C to 6C below average for most of NSW and Victoria, and those colder temperatures will extend inland into southernQueensland,” said Daniel Hayes, a community information officer at the Bureau.
Residents in regional NSW experienced freezing temperatures on the weekend, with Goulburn dipping as low as -10C on Saturday and -7.8C on Sunday, and Cooma reaching a minimum of -8.6C on Saturday and -10C on Sunday.
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The Bureau issued severe wind warnings for the coming days, particularly for high country areas in Victoria and NSW that would see “damaging wind gusts”, Hayes said.
Angus Hines, a senior meteorologist at the Bureau, said wind warnings for Victoria were “almost everywhere on and south of the mountain ranges”.
“ForTasmania, [it’s] just the north-east coast, as well as in the Bass Strait, and for NSW and the ACT, the warning area covers most of the mountain ranges,” he said.
In these areas, the Bureau warned that wind gusts could reach up to 120km/h.
“For South Australia we’re looking at damaging winds for parts of the Yorke Peninsula around Adelaide, the Mount Lofty Ranges, Kangaroo Island and the south-east,” Hines said.
Cold nights and frost are expected as winds ease later in the week.
“We will see frost fairly widespread across Victoria, NSW and into southern and central parts of Queensland by around Thursday and Friday,” Hayes said.
Below-average temperaturesand frost will extend into southern inland parts of Queensland, with overnight lows forecast between -2C and 2C.
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Daytime temperatures this week are expected to be slightly warmer, and return to “much closer to the average across most of the eastern parts of the country”, Hayes said.
Melbourne is forecast to reach a maximum of 11C on Wednesday, 13C on Thursday and 14C on Friday, with similar highs of 14C and 13C expected for the weekend.
A top of 18C is forecast in Sydney on Wednesday, with 16C predicted on Thursday, 17C on Friday, 18C on Saturday and 19C on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Brisbane will enjoy much warmer weather, with a high of 23C forecast for Wednesday, 20C on Thursday and an average high of 21C from Friday across the weekend.
“It’s still winter, of course, and still June, so temperatures will be cool to cold depending on where you are,” Hayes said. “Obviously, around the higher country, you should still expect to see it be quite cold even when we are hitting averages.”